The "nuclear" option - what if GE wasn't there?

So what happens if GE go bust or your broadband & phone are offline for extended periods?

Can you still control it locally? Well no you can’t, not with the GE app or portal.

The app has a “Local/Home” setting but the app relies on contacting GE servers before it’ll talk to the inverter on your property.

If you can’t contact those servers/they no longer exist then the GE app is useless.

There’s another issue in that the inverter/dongle will restart its network interface every ten minutes or so if it can’t find the GE comms servers IP addresses.

However it transpires that provided you can send the inverter a “heartbeat signal” then the dongle is quite happy to stay online.

So how do we do this?

First - GivTCP v3 which you can use with Home Assistant. Its not hard to do (there’s videos online and it’s basically point and click) but the price of Raspberry Pi’s are not what they were. It’ll allow setting the clock and has calibration controls. GivTCP v2 doesn’t appear to provide the “heartbeat signal” so its going to be awfully unreliable for automations. I’m going to have to fire it up now and then as v3 doesn’t expose the PV string controls (independent/one string) I have on v2. They come in handy for sunny winter mornings.

Next – and the one I’d recommend - is Rubikcube’s Inverter app on Android. It does pretty much all the stuff you’d need if GE went bust, with the exception of calibrating the battery. This does need to be left running to get most benefit but can be run the same way as the GE app, just won’t keep stats. Should be reliable either way. It is only on Android and the developer’s name is Andrew Millar. The free version provides a heartbeat signal too. Runs on ancient versions (Android9) so cheapo/CeX tablets for those of you on Apple.

BBC Basic Inverter – this one’s on iOS store, IIRC you can sideload a version on Android. I don’t really know much about it as it didn’t seem to have the same controls on Android – I downloaded it to set the clock a while back. Its not exactly reliable in where it puts the user interface but YMMV.

The speculation is that were GE to go bust then its likely the givenergy.cloud domain would be bought/transferred to a phoenix company (with the software assets) who would monetise the app.

In short - you can have free access and let us control your battery etc or pay a monthly fee. For a lot of people on “intelligent” tariffs/DRS that’d mean a monthly fee would be compulsory.

So the answer is that yes we do have other options and its not going to cost a fortune to exercise that choice thanks to the largely unpaid efforts of volunteers.

For those wanting a more in-depth technical dip…..

Inverter is a G1 running 191/193 “fast response” f/w. Dongle is on whatever the production firmware was back in 2022. There’s under 0.5% packet loss at the PHY layer of the WLAN over the course of 24 hours apart from WLAN reconnects. Battery is a 9.5kWh with v3015 BMS.

NB – packet sniffing was at the edge of the network and not on the AP.

Normal operation -

Basically the dongle boots up and does the usual DHCP discovery stuff.

It then does a DNS lookup on comms.givenergy.cloud – which is currently hosted on AWS and has load balancers. It also does a lookup on 0.pool.ntp.org.

After that it’ll establish a link to port 7654 on the comms servers and do an ntp sync from the timeserver pool to set the dongle time. It appears that setting the actual inverter time via modbus from the dongle after a lookup isn’t utilised. Having seen the GivTCP log for a time sync I can understand why that might be.

The link to port 7654 on the comms servers will send a small packet from the servers to the dongle every few seconds, with a larger transfer of data every 5 minutes.

Operation when “GE/internet is gone”. GE domains don’t exist and the dongle can’t contact the timeserver -

Basically the dongle boots up and does the usual DHCP discovery stuff.

It then does a DNS lookup on comms.givenergy.cloud – which is currently hosted on AWS and has load balancers.It also does a lookup on 0.pool.ntp.org.

When the DNS lookup on comms.givenergy.cloud returns a NXDOMAIN response then the dongle repeats the lookup every two seconds until 600 seconds expire.

The dongle then drops the network (release/renew) and the cycle begins again.

Note that the dongle retains its ARP cache as you can see in the attached jpgs where its asking about recent IP connections. You can also see from the time column that the release/renew duration is 5 seconds or so, which doesn’t correlate with when the modbus is available – that’s more like 30 seconds later if GivTCP logs are accurate.

I wasn’t monitoring for this but because I’d effectively blocked the inverter off from the internet I suspect the lack of connection to 0.pool.ntp.org caused the dongle to ping the gateway periodically after a period of time. That was followed by an actual PHY disconnect on the WLAN. Note that returning NXDOMAIN on the GE domain while allowing access to everything else still resulted in the dongle dropping the network every 10 minutes – didn’t test for longer as its been 2 days or so of leaving it offline and running packet sniffing.

As soon as a “heartbeat” was made available to the dongle (Rubikcube’s app) then the network remained stable, even with NXDOMAIN/timeserver blocking. GivTCP v3 had the same effect.

Edit - jpgs of release/renew etc

Thanks for investigating this!

Thanks! Ive been following discussion on other 'Is GE going bust?' threads for a while and have just about got there with my understanding but this makes it super clear.

I've already got Predbat working using GivTCP v3 so I think if I was to block my inverters internet access I'd lose nothing except control via the Givenergy app or web portal which I've not used in forever?

Could GE do something to lock out local control just before going bust if someone rather unscrupulous wanted to hold GE equipment owners to ransom? If so, would I need to find a way of preventing WAN access to my inverter? I'm using a TP Link Deco mesh system and I can see how to block the inverter acessing WAN, but not necessarily the other way round.

Lincs_Will If so, would I need to find a way of preventing WAN access to my inverter? I'm using a TP Link Deco mesh system and I can see how to block the inverter acessing WAN, but not necessarily the other way round.

Your router firewall should be blocking that. The inverter initiates the connection out to the cloud, not the other way round. So once you've blocked the outgoing connection, there should be no access to the inverter from outside.

Thankyou very much for posting this

Vestas It then does a DNS lookup on comms.givenergy.cloud – which is currently hosted on AWS and has load balancers.

Thanks for investing and posting.

My solar inverter (a Growatt) is out-of-the-box set up to phone home to China. Luckily, a user has reversed out the server protocol so that a version can be run locally ( https://github.com/johanmeijer/grott/wiki/Grottserver ). (In this case their dongle allows the user to input the remote server IP address, which helps.)

Might it be analagously possible to spoof comms.givenergy.cloud locally, or is the connection encrypted/signed?

Vestas However it transpires that provided you can send the inverter a “heartbeat signal” then the dongle is quite happy to stay online.

I wouldn't characterise it quite like that... the heartbeat is just a part of the client protocol. So I'm guessing that it's an active modbus client connection that keeps it alive, and part of the protocol is that the inverter (or dongle) issues a heartbeat request from time to time, and the client must respond promptly. If it doesn't, the connection is closed.

See https://github.com/britkat1980/giv_tcp/blob/fe07cd56e01607bf97b360b3a5a23b544219c820/GivTCP/givenergy_modbus_async/framer.py#L46

PianSom Its not encrypted so it should be possible to put a proxy in place but what would be the point? Its sort of reinventing the wheel as either GivTCP or Rubikcube's app effectively act as controllers for the inverter.

If someone is technically competent to setup a proxy then they can set a firewall entry to block inverter comms to the internet easy enough.

DD I didn't want to go into the protocol/comms that the inverter uses. Its not much use to anyone other than developers, so I simplified 🙂

Vestas
Great summary and it gives those of us using HA/GivTCP/Predbat/RubiksCube a lot of reassurance. For those not using those platforms it gives them a route to gaining control.

Vestas So what happens if ... your broadband & phone are offline for extended periods?

Had that last year. No landline or broadband for 4 weeks.
Was able to control the inverter locally using the Android Monitor app (paid version).

Just to add to this, I had issues changing Fibre providers last year and went without broadband for several weeks (they had to dig the road up to rod the new fibre cable). Even after that, for some reason, the inverter was offline for months on the Giv Cloud until I rebooted the inverter. I didn't notice as I don't use the Giv Cloud.
I've been a HA and Predbat/GivTCP V3 user from day 1 and didn't have any issues with my inverter on my local network during my Internet outage.
I've also blocked the Inverter from the Internet so it wouldn't show online on the Giv Portal and blocked givenergy.cloud address and AWS addresses for a couple of days just to see what would happen. It didn't affect my Inverter (other than showing offine on the portal), HA and I didn't see any errors in GivTCP and Predbat.

Sorry to sound simple but if I have the GE gateway and the AIO which inverter / IP should I add to the bbc basic app as I’ve tried both and haven’t been able to get it to pull any data through.

cbowen That’s good to know. I suppose the only issue is going to be tariffs like Intelligent Octopus Flux which I use during the summer as that is controlled through GivEnergy.

Works fine on my Gateway and Dual AIO setup. I have a all three IP addresses entered into the BBC App.

Leeshore Or, even, all the year around (as I can't be arsed to swap tariffs).
As a senior citizen, I also need to bear in mind how my missus (IT illiterate - shhh, don't tell her I said that) might be able to manage my Inverter / Battery if I cease to exist.

I’ve bought the paid version of the inverter monitor app on android and that doesn’t pull any data through either. But the AIO is working as it’s covering the house load so assume it’s still functioning to the overnight charge schedule I had set in the GE app ages ago.

bakedbeanboy363 I have Dual AIO and Gateway and have the paid for version of the Android App. First step is to have fixed IP addresses on both AIO's and Gateway. In the Android App go to settings and tell it you have 3 inverters, then enter your 3 fixed IP addresses. It will then just work without issue in my experience.

Leeshore Yep, anything that uses the Giv API would stop working. This would be Intelligent Flux, DFS events like Axle, etc. Unless another company was to pick this up as part of a purchase.
I tested this on an Axle event and blocked the Inverter to the Internet and Axle couldn't control as expected. My dad uses the same setup with Agile and that wouldn't be affected as it gets the rates from Octopus and Predbat creates a plan. It's only when an external company tries to control the inverter that the Giv API is required.
Of course, really hope this doesn't happen as there's some really good people at GivEnergy who have no control over what's going on. I've recommended them to people over the years and wanted to back a UK business and jobs in this country.
Just reassuring that we aren't all left with paperweights and still have local control.

duplada thanks for the info. Notice the AIO although working was showing as lost in the GEcloud so rebooted it and obviously that’s all that was needed to get it to show on the inverter apps also.

I'd just like to point out to people that its a condition of the warranty that the system stays connected to the internet so don't go doing any long-term blocking of the comms servers.

I think @Rubikcube had a solution in terms of preventing GE making changes while still staying connected which I think had to do with packet size? Can't remember TBH.

Anyway don't go blocking the comms servers on your firewall while GE are still around 🙂

For those running givtcp with HA are you storing data influx or some other db ?
I have been trying givtcp with an existing Openhabian setup (I’m not using this to control the inverter) but I am noticing that it is dropping data as I can see gaps in the Grafana graphs and logs show issues writing to influx.

Hello all. I really appreciate all the efforts a number of you are putting into trying to work out how this would work.

What I would like to ask is how easy is it to set up HA & GivTCP? I ask this as an over 70 who has very limited PC knowledge and uses Apple devices. Will the YouTube videos really be usable by me? What is a “cheapo/CeX tablet”, I.e. what specifications? Is there a “Dummies guide”?

Is it going to be a case of finding a “local expert” to help with setting something up?

Maxwell For those running givtcp with HA are you storing data influx or some other db ?

I just use the in built HA recorder database, and I actively prune my entity history so rely on the HA history statistics (captured every hour) for most reporting.
There is an option to export givtcp data direct to Influx, but I think I saw a ticket saying it wasn’t working, but as I’ve never used it, no perspective.

For me the HA statistics is more than enough. I can see daily/weekly/monthly consumption, solar generation, grid import/export in the Energy dashboard, far more reliable than the GivEnergy app/portal.

If I want to I can draw history or Apex charts of things like inverter cell temperature vs garage temperature:

Or heat pump consumption vs outside air temp

Influx and Grafana are possible, better graphs, but for me never been necessary. Most of the givtcp data is transient that you wouldn’t want to capture anyway. Who cares what the SoC chart is?

idrobbo What I would like to ask is how easy is it to set up HA & GivTCP? I ask this as an over 70 who has very limited PC knowledge and uses Apple devices. Will the YouTube videos really be usable by me? What is a “cheapo/CeX tablet”, I

I would not recommend HA and GivTCP unless you are prepared to get a bit hands on. There are tutorial videos but you need a certain level of technical desire. And once you have installed them, you still need something on the top to control the inverter, be that predbat or your own automation scripts.

A much simpler option is to use the BBC basic inverter app which works on iOS. It is a bit simple but it works well.
When you first run it you will need to enter the IP address of your inverter which you can get from your router or the local monitoring screen on the givenergy app
https://apps.apple.com/app/id6443976497

geoffreycoan

Thanks very much for the swift reply Geoffrey.

I already have that App, didn’t appreciate I could use it to adjust settings. I suspect this would suffice for me as, touch wood, my system (Gen1 3kWh Inverter & 9.5 battery) has worked very well since installation, and I am not inclined to tinker with it.

No new posts for half a day - has it already happened?!

SimonClarke
Simon . Thanks.
No new posts where?
What has happened?

Literally had no posts showing anywhere for the last 12hours. Wondering if we had been switched off!

Is that a full week without Zohodesk support now? Not sure when we start to deploy the reserve wiki copies of it?

hoggy I dunno but I'd recommend people download the files they may need in future from kb.givenergy.cloud....

Vestas
That site Vestas looks like it has not been updated for a while..maybe a year?

AndyZ900rs It hasn't but its got docs on how to upgrade firmware/install inverters etc. Also a f/w release notes list that goes back a fair old way. Edit - plus the power supply method of reviving batteries that have gone too flat.

Like these.

I think I have the lot both old and new KB and the full firmware spread from zoho before it went, so other than perhaps oddball beta FW (and yes I do have the G1 Fast FW...) most basis covered.

Also for those doing "prep work" you may want to consider deleting your Solcast API keys from the portal as it may be difficult at a later date. I've just done it as I never really use the portal apart from the occasional report.

wrighar what's thew GE url for the firmware downloads or has the site/page already been taken down ?

It is currently down.

Maxwell
The new KB (zoho) is down, the old one is still up but best part of a year out of date:

phoenix
Why post such a political message? This is not "X"! None of my kit was subsidised by anyone - I wanted to have non-reliance directly on fossil fuels; hence removal of my gas boiler on renovation of our bungalow to a heat pump. The solay system complemented this move. The choice of GivEnergy was made by the installer we used after getting several quotes which was just over 18 months ago. The fact that it is looking like the company is showing signs of failing has nothing to do with my choice nor with the current government. You sound like a very bitter man/woman..still most of those trying to get us angry about something on "X" are the same. Shame on you

phoenix
I am not sure what tax subsidy I received/receive for my PV installation. I paid for it all out of may savings. As far as I am aware I did not receive any discounts or contributions from anyone. In the past when I have enquired about any interest free loan/grants to help insulate my old house (built 1840 with solid walls), the first question always posed to me was "are you working", which I was , at that point "sorry no can do".
I was not able to set anything I did against tax in respect of improving insulation, cutting heat loss, reducing energy consumption etc, even though I know it is the right thing to do for my bills and the planet.

phoenix Sounds like you have been drinking from the mis-information cup of X. Our install was free from VAT. Although as a private individual you still have to pay VAT if you go and buy the individual parts yourself. And as everybody only pays 5% VAT on their electricity bills then this is hardly a massive tax payer subsidised party for the privileged few. In fact it’s folks in this and similar communities that are helping reduce the UK’s dependence on imported energy. At peak times our communities are either using their own stored energy or being incentivised to dump excess to the grid. Thus reducing the strain on our national grid at times of high demand. In fact you could argue that decisions taken by previous governments regarding the national grid have limited communities like this from exporting more electricity to the grid for the benefit of everybody. And no this isn’t some big scam for solar customers to make a ton of money. This is a long term investment and some may not make back what they paid. Others will and some will make a bit out of it. But nobody will be retiring on the profits any time soon.

phoenix Shame on you'! Seriously? lol! Who are you to judge what I say and where? What are you judging me for?

Seems like you here just to rant and not engage in a thoughtful discussion?

This forum is about helping people not to rant and spout utter BS. Your local flag shagger pub is where you need to hang out....

Bye....

M_J

Seems like your here to play ding dong ditch and throw a few insults I don't understand.
I do appreciate your well thought out response though ...

Why do you think the AMOC is slowing? Nothing to do with our friend fossil fuels surely....
FIT closed in 2019 so most people here, including us, did not receive a penny from the scheme.
Presumably new gas, coal and oil power plants do not use any steal or concrete in their construction since you single that out for criticism....
China is decarbonising at a rapid rate, as are other countries manufacturing moved to for cheaper labour costs.
Extreme weather means our food security most certainly does not lie with fossil fuels. Heavy rainfall and extreme heat have both taken their toll on crops in the last few years. If the AMOC does indeed fail it may no longer be possible to grow many at all.
Whilst we are talking (again) about the AMOC, I understand it disappearing will make our climate somewhat like Norway. Where is it that Heat Pumps have the highest global share of heating? Norway and Sweden. The technology is clearly up to it, any adaptation will mostly be improving our dreadful housing stock.
If you think fossil fuels lead to energy security in the middle of the second fossil fuel induced energy crisis in less than ten years then there is really no helping you.

Lastly none of this is on topic. Please create a new thread to "educate" us all or better still enjoy the quiet satisfaction of knowing better than us fools and keep out of it altogether.

Please explain the running AMOC thing ...

phoenix China is not decarboniisng at all

Between 2019 and 2024, China will account for 40% of global renewable capacity expansion

https://www.iea.org/countries/china

China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 1% in the final quarter of 2025, likely securing a decline of 0.3% for the full year as a whole.

This extends a “flat or falling” trend in China’s CO2 emissions that began in March 2024 and has now lasted for nearly two years

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-have-now-been-flat-or-falling-for-21-months/

pwdst

1st point : Global renewable capacity expansion is a canard. Needs to be put in context of other power expansion, and I have no doubt that China will lead the field in all metrics (coal, gas, nuclear, renewables)

2nd: Interesting, not something I've seen before, will do some research. Thank you

Slartibartfast

Essesntially its a warm water flow that keep us warmer than countries at a similat latitude (like NY). It's not a simple flow, its has an 'escelator' effect in places. Probably why it has 'Overturning' Iin the name.

Slartibartfast AMOC

I beleive it is
AMOC - Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and,
AGW - Anthropogenic global warming (climate change)

I had to google both these as I didn't understand them!

My understanding is that the Greenland freshwater melt is diluting the cold dense saltwater effect, reducing the power of the down escelator and slowing the whole current that has a large influence on UK (and other countries) climates. In theory, global warming increases the melt, and UK gets colder, not warmer, as less warm water is drawn northwards past our western shore. Likely leads to more'static' weather too, as weather is essentially air moving across pressure/temperature gradients

Reading this thread is getting depressing.
As Jim Morrison said “I don’t know what’s gonna happen man, but I wanna have my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames”

This is not an El Nino, La Nina type of thing, those are seasonal/annual/multiannual events that revers. This is a much longer time frame event, one that would I believe be measured in lifetimes, not seasons.

phoenix So you accept climate change exists and is man made as a result of the burning of fossil fuels, and that it will have serious consequences for the UK. Yet you advocate for less renewables and more fossil fuels to counter this? And in the midst of a fossil fuel availability and pricing crisis? None of that makes sense to me.

SteveCook

Talking of shithouses going up in flames, back on topic at last, any news on GE?

SteveCook

I think he achieved that, but timing might have been a bit off!
Staring this shit in the fface is rough, there is no denying that.
And then we are all Jim Morrison ...

I put PV panels on my house roof and garage roof, dug up my law to plant wildflowers and bought a hive and bees to do my bit for the planet and my very young grandchildren. I did not do any of it to make money or even save money, I did it because i thought they were the right things to do. Seems i might have been wrong on some fronts

pwdst

I advocate for adaptation. I think that a headlong rush into wind and solar is suicidal for the UK. We have neither the weather nor the grid infrastructure for it to work, and we are terrible at infrastucture. Ultimately the fate of the UK's climate is dependent upon much larger things than us. ie. just because we are next to it does not mean we can have any meaningful impact on it. I believe that our Net Zero policies, given that we are neither food nor energy independent, will make us one of the first and hardest to fall in the West. We have gas, oil, and coal and we should be seeking to balance and wind down.
As for oil prices, climate change won't be solved by the markets, or not in any way that will work well for us. Almost all of our infrastructure is outsourced to the east. And arrives on very large diesel powered ships.
Correction: Oil prices could crush global demand, reducing emissions, and we all fall together. Yay, party on!

SteveCook
Wrong on which fronts? I'm not sure there is much more anyone can do as we are all part of the energy consumimg machine. It's what we do, we use energy to 'order' things, which mostly, as we are so detached from nature, require yet more energy to maintain. And we will continue to do that until we cant

I agree that we should move away form FF, but in a measured way and not this rush that Miliband believes in.
I think the first thing to do should be "to fix the hole in the bucket, rather than using a different tap to pour the water in". This means fixing insulation and infiltration in UK housing stock - properly-not by cowboys. Then the problem of what energy to use automatically gets smaller .

Surely we can at least limit our own domestic costs especially as renewables are cheaper than gas, coal and oil - and were before either of the two most recent crises. Ignoring prices for a second we do not rely on overseas powers for renewable energy sources.
Before you say but we have our own, it doesn't appear we have been a net exporters of gas since 2003 and oil since 2005. The limited reserves of both we have are best employed to wind down our dependence on foreign powers whilst we transition to renewables as quickly as possible. As for coal, haven't produced our own at scale since the eighties.
The UK certainly does not have the power to solve the climate crisis on our own, but we definitely have the power to make it worse.

Spain used to have some of the highest energy costs in Europe and now has some of the lowest due to their heavy investment in solar and wind. It appears that they made some mistakes around balancing but these are engineering challenges with existing engineering solutions.
Denmark produces around 60% of their electricity from wind power alone, with solar providing an additional ₁₃%.
Scotland consistently runs almost entirely off wind (right now northern Scotland is zero carbon and creating 0g CO²/kWh, Southern Scotland is generating 2g CO²/kWh) and more wind South of the border would reduce grid constraints and shadowing alike.
There is huge solar potential in the UK and hotter summers will actually improve that.
Crucially the primary energy needed for heating and transport alike are much reduced with electricity as efficiency is much higher.
Your argument is that it is hard so we shouldn't even try. For every kilowatt hour we generate from renewables that is less that we have to buy (and very often transport) on the global markets. I explicitly want to see both the Drax wood pellets and the LNG ships end and the only way we are going to achieve that is through generating our own energy locally.
Industry started to leave long before the transition to renewables, largely related to massively competitive labour prices in the Far East, and we aren't going to support what remains by going all in on the most expensive fuels.
If a domestic grocery budget is overspent you don't solve that by going all in on steak, you buy lower priced pasta and beans. It is almost universally accepted that the bulk of the increase in energy costs has been down to the increase in the costs of the fuels themselves.
Whilst investing in the grid does carry costs much of that would have had to happen anyway with privatisation starving networks of funds for decades and the result will be the sort of prices Spain and Portugal are now enjoying.

Its pivot to renewables has been a big win for household energy bills. In 2019, prior to Spain’s wind and solar revolution, it had some of the highest electricity prices in Europe. Now it has some of the cheapest.

“Spain started [2026] with some of the cheapest power prices in Europe, a trend that continued into the first week of March”, says Ember report authors Chris Rosslowe

https://www.euronews.com/2026/03/11/spains-renewables-revolution-likely-to-keep-energy-bills-low-even-as-gas-prices-soar

Additionally, and I cannot stress this enough, if the world keeps burning fossil fuels then we will not be able to keep running the sort of society we are used to at all.
Constant resource extraction and burning are unsustainable on many levels, we already require multiple Earth's to support the existing human population - and we only have one available.
An earth with severe food and water shortages, war, mass migration and frequent severe life threatening storms will not support any society any of us might enjoy.

Phoenix Interesting name...coming from a bird that lives for a few centuries before combusting and then re-birth..could provide some energy - not renewable since 1st Law of Thermodynamics broken.
On a factual point - it was not Ed who is/was a Marxist; it was his father Ralph and it was he who pledged allegiance at Highgate cemetery.
You have been a member of this community since 2022...so presumably you (have)had GE kit on/in a property and devoted some money/investment/inheritance on it? unless you have joined several community chats of other solar energy companies and say the same thing to their members? So did you have a really bad experience with GE and/or GE installer and hence felt the need to expound so much and expend so much energy on contributing to our problem-solving and solution-sharing exchanges.
What you have written about AMOC is correct as indeed about several other geo-ecological issues. I also agree that small modular fission reactors may be needed to plug gaps and help base loads. However, as a biochemist and educator I can see that bio-technological advances in ammonia/nitrate production as well as other developments in new catalysts using much lower energies will make great contributions. Similarly, in theory all our energy needs in UK "could" be supplied eventually using several forms of renewable including tidal for which we are uniquely situated (irrespective of sea flows).
I repeat (as I said in immediate response to your first post) That this community discussion are is not really the place to vent your frustrations and obvious internal anger at the energy suppliers/users of renewable energy in this community.
See below:

**I hear and agree with almost all of your concerns. I am neither a denier, nor a conspiracy theorist. I am an extremely concerned citizen watching as we appear to be doing all the wrong things in a large part due to the energy policies of a self confessed Marxist (who supposedly pledged his allegiance at Comrad Marx's grave). If that does not concern you, whilst watching the path we are on, I am not sure what will help you (to use similar terms to you)._

Off topic? What is off topic when everything is at stake? Which I think you actually agree that it is. Nobody wants to hear this, so where do you post it? If one person learns one thing from my post and looks deeper and learns more, then this was absolutely the right place to post.

Again, thank you for engaging, and I hope you recognise that I am not just some ignorant troll. And it fucks me off that people such as yourselves have been exploited by Mr Osler & co.

A small edit - the slowing of the AMOC is absolutely one of my greatest concerns for this country, for the reasons you mention. Thank you. What adds to concern is that we are probably doing all the wrong things to protect against it (if that's even possible). There will be less sun , more dunkelflaute (and more widespread), and harder growing conditions. I do not see a single policy this country is taking that will help us with this. Do you?**_

I do not mean to be rude but as a person with further medical training I would advise that you spend some time in a more productive way.
I know nothing of your background but I suggest you write a peer-reviewed academic paper that lays out all the points you have made in this forum and when published we can all read (if we have sufficient education/understanding and time to do so).
It is going to be good sunny weather here soon....I shall enjoy it. Take care

I don't think anybody (including the government) believes that we will ever get to a totally fossil fuel economy, as has been said there are too many parts of our society/lifestyle/country that are heavily dependent upon FF (fertilisers, bitumen, virgin steel, plastics being just a few examples already mentioned).

But if we can reduce our dependence upon FF's, single use plastics, become more energy independent, move along that road towards electrification, and alternatives etc that has to be a good thing. All the UK governments over the last 20 or so years (regardless of colour) have agreed that's the right journey to make. There's different views of the speed of transition but the direction is pretty much agreed upon.

The initial point that started this off was about government subsidies. I personally don't see anything wrong with that as being a mechanism the government uses to change behaviour of the population. You can either ask people (which I suggest is largely ineffective for most changes), apply carrot or apply stick.
Example of applying carrot, the FIT incentives and heat pump installation grants. These have encouraged takeup and driven adoption of greener technologies to the point that these are now mainstream with lots of suppliers. When we were looking at a heat pump installation 4 years ago there was hardly any suppliers. Over time these carrots won't be needed and the subsidies will reduce and eventually cease.
Example of applying stick, the single use plastic bag tax. Prior attempts to encourage reuse had failed, charging 5p and then 10p for plastic bags has dramatically reduced their use. Less FF, less landfill, less discarded waste.
I don't see anything wrong with any of these approaches.

On energy sourcing, I am against Drax and burning wood pellets from America and shipping LNG in from Qatar or wherever, but recognise we have to be practical and keep the lights on whilst transitioning to a better balance of cleaner energies. That's not totally renewables, but a better balance than we have now. Nuclear needs to be part of the equation as well (and is a big part of why electricity in France for example is much cheaper than the UK), but the idea that we should be investing in extracting new coal and gas field is going in the wrong direction in my view.

The big miss that all governments seem to be ignoring is insulating properly and building better houses. On that I can agree with Insulate Britain and other such groups. Can't understand why its not being made a bigger part of rebalancing our energy need. Token numbers of solar panels on new build roofs to get a better EPC; another example of where the government could force more change to occur. More carrot, less stick.

Interesting topic

Interesting that you mention Scotland and Spain. This hit my inbox yesterday. Have not had time to fully digest it yet

https://watt-logic.com/2026/03/14/scotlands-looming-energy-crisis/

It's not that I think it's so hard we shouldn't try, it's that I believe we have already crossed multiple tipping points and some of the outcomes you describe are already baked in. I am also concerned that a mad rush to transition will accelerate the issues, not solve them, primarily due the acceleration of the extractive industrial processes required. To me it looks like a Thelma and Louise scenario.

https://open.spotify.com/track/0pXa8LoBgpELqsMaSvmTXo?si=abde1e7f57e5466d

geoffreycoan
Agree with you regarding pellets and LNG and all the "carrot" approaches you mentioned. The UK has been particularly bad and house insulation mainly due to so many people wanting to buy houses and the location of UK being in a "Goldilocks" position of not being too cold/hot. Hence Northern Scandinavians and Iceland/Greenland having insulated properties to a much higher standard than here. US/Canada took a different approach with dependence on heating rather than insulation. I lived in the Netherlands for several years and there most people rent (and rent from Government Agencies) and building regulations have for many years depended on high insulation standards.

Actually, the world has enough fossil fuels currently being tapped to not need to "drill baby drill" anywhere in the world. Of course, the energy crisis is but one small aspect of our concerns - global poverty is rising still and using various measures - extreme poverty ($2.15/day) to $5 / day levels gives 10% and nearly 24% respectively..and with insurrections all over and FF "wars" the mass migration of people will create even more disturbance the global world order.
Anyway - got other things to do ...hope the day brightens for us all

phoenix
Not patronising nor supercilious (snobbish..really?) . This forum (and certainly not this thread) was not really constructed for the kind of debate you want to have. someone suggested that you start an appropriately-headed thread of your own and not use this one; if my idea of an academic paper was a bit "threatening" or "offensive" then start that thread. I repeat that some of your comments have an approach too like some social-media and use of expletives I have not seen by members (or very rarely). I am leaving this discussion now and hope for a new thread from you here or elsewhere. I am as worried as you but maybe show it in a different way. Undoubtedly, you will want a final word but I am off to read to wisdom and help of others in this forum

phoenix acceleration of the extractive industrial processes required

Each and every time you start your car or turn on your boiler that is backed by substantial extractive industrial processes which can be disastrous environmentally for the communities around them - as many many class action lawsuits document. That energy then needs to be shipped to where it is needed which with the extraction and refinement of the resources reportedly consumes around 25% of the global energy demand.
Lithium mining may not be problem free but you only extract it once for ten or more years of use and almost everything in a battery can be recycled at the end of life.
Sodium batteries are nearing maturity as are iron-air batteries which are two of the most abundant materials on the planet.
Energy density isn't quite there yet but for grid scale and long term storage their low cost and abundance is very attractive.
Inertia is something the Spanish clearly have not invested in sufficiently but as I previously stated there are existing engineering solutions to this engineering problem and the NESO themselves believe it can be done.
The UK Government also does not currently plan to remove fossil fuels entirely from the system but generate 95% from low carbon sources (which includes inertia providing Nuclear). At that level the costs associated with gas peaker plants are likely to be significantly outscaled by reductions in the average half hourly wholesale price.
I have better things to do than indulge your cognitive dissonance that doing more of the things that got us into the situation is the solution to get us out of it.
Apart from anything else today is the day to make our quarterly investment in the Big Solar Co-op, I shall think of you as I attempt to save humanity throw our money somehow into the bin.
I also hear that the Octopus Energy Co-operative has a new project in Cornwall. Should I put both of our names down?

Don't Feed The Troll!!!

Have we considered that the troll might be a secret GE implant trying to distract those pesky customers from daring to question the companies future 😉

As John Mellencamp sings "Time holds the winning hand"

phoenix So you join a customer forum of a solar equipment vendor that you are not a customer of and hijack an unrelated thread to attack solar energy and the people who have chosen to invest their hard owned money in systems. You are deeply worried about climate change but we really should be binning renewables and using more fossil fuels. And you're not a troll?
You were antagonist, disrespectful and aggressive and if I was running the forums your account would have been suspended for that. If you now feel like a victim this entire situation was of your own making.
As far as I know there is no way to self delete accounts but if GivEnergy does go under then presumably the whole forum will be deleted.

There is the option to flag posts to whoever moderates. But not sure who is meant to do that or whether they have staff to do so.

phoenix

Mind that the door doesn't catch you on the way out.

Please gents. Enough.
There are too many other things to worry about and seeing these messages is not necessary. You have all made your points

I agree steve. I will attempt to change my password to random stuff and not save it. Not able to do it until at my desk it seems, so get your last slugs in now while you can lads. Or you could just say nothing and let me leave in peace ...

I thought this forum was for adults not children, I think the thread has completely gone of topic.
Can we call an end to all this childishness please

phoenix
Child...yes agree...it is all "X" stuff....you must have the last word on everything. ANGER is what feeds you. Please do not respond to any more comments on here (of course you will!) just please support your own community...wherever they are.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!

Can someone please ban this person from the forum

geoffreycoan you will need to enter the IP address of your inverter which you can get from your router or the local monitoring screen on the givenergy app

Thanks for the info, I have just found my inverter in BBC Basic Inverter app and it is reassuring to know that there is an alternative of sorts to the GE app. Fingers crossed I never need it.

With all the discussion of the problems that customers face if companies go under I do wonder whether there would be any merit in Government mandating the use of open api’s for this sort of equipment. I know I can hear the wrath of all those vendors out there…

Maxwell It should be written into consumer law that ALL equipment must be fully functional using LOCAL controls.

No ifs, no buts, no cloud.

As I have posted elsewhere , I am assuming Mr Milliband is all over these sorts of issues as part of his grand master plan. Ha ha

SteveCook , I am assuming Mr Milliband is all over these sorts of issues as part of his grand master plan

You do realise it's people who advise him on these choices. At least he is getting some green advice compared to Farage who is being funded by the oil industry and the same backers as Trump. The conservatives are barely any better and you just have to read the Tory media to know they don't want progress.

Heaven help the country if Reform takes control...

M_J
Thanks. I do realise and agree with the sentiments, but what worries me is that there does not seems to be much HMGov clarity on things like software/firmware, local control, EV connector types etc. I thought I was entering a mature/secure marketplace, but feel like an early adopter of imported equipment, and if that the company decides it no longer wants to operate in the UK, then I am high and dry. My 10 year extended warranty (that I paid extra for) seems to be worthless if there is nobody to contact

SteveCook . I thought I was entering a mature/secure marketplace, but feel like an early adopter of imported equipment, and if that the company decides it no longer wants to operate in the UK, then I am high and dry

Yep, correct it's bleeding edge and has been under any government.

If you want change write to your MP they create regulations. Or hope we get back under EU regulations who do a pretty good job of protecting consumers. But if course we wanted to take back control....

Blaming labour is just a lazy attack seeking simple answers rather than understanding the complexity.

SteveCook from personal experience I wouldn’t trust any warranty over 5 years unless it has a proven record. Even then it’s best to allow for the warranty provider to just disappear, never mind plain not paying out.

M_J
Thanks, but i did not blame labour anywhere in my post.
I was just making a point that whichever party gets in power it seems to come up with "good ideas" that it steers Joe Public to follow but leaves any problems with the public through leaving the marketplace to respond, which will all have different standards and approaches.
The drive to diesel cars a prime example - not sure exactly when and what party!
i went and saw Grant Schapps about 15 years ago extolling the virtues of heat pumps and how everyone should install them ,but forgetting the Carnot efficiency issues, lack of electrical grid capacity and distribution. etc He spoke as though he had discovered perpetual motion but was not prepared to hear about the limitations

Vestas absolutely agree with the point being made about local control being very important when buying smart home devices. Especially expensive ones like inverters and batteries.

We at least have some comfort that we do have that with our givenergy kit.

I know some people are favouring Sigenergy as being the new solar/battery darling, when looking for something else I found this blog post about pro’s and con’s of Sig https://www.pscenergy.com.au/blog/pros-and-cons-of-the-sigenergy-sigenstor-solar-battery-and-energy-system/
Two jump out:

1. Newness of the company
2. The need for the batteries to phone home every 3 months or else they deactivate themselves

geoffreycoan It'll come to a head when cars start failing MoTs because cloud-connected "safety devices" no longer function as the manufacturer has dropped support.

That's likely to happen in the next 2-3 years IMHO. After that politicians might start getting interested.

My Ebay sourced Android tablet arrived ( Honor X8A ) and I have downloaded and installed and updated the Inverter app from Rubikube.
Logged on to HA that's been running on my ancient iPad, of course the aspect ratio is different so looks a bit squished compared to the 4:3. So hopefully that's me covered somewhat.

geoffreycoan The need for the batteries to phone home every 3 months or else they deactivate themselves

Wow. And yikes! Thanks Geoffrey. I've been following Sigenergy as a potential replacement should GE go south and my
system stop working without and realistic hope of repair. I really like their V2H capability.

The "feature" that if the system stays offline for more than 90 days, the battery will shut off is a showstopping red flag for me.

It might be a good thing, though... If Sigenergy does hit hard times and no rescue is in place, 90 days after their servers are switched off, every SigenStor installation will fail. The owners will kick off, all at the same time. I reckon that will be a significantly large and monied group to encourage legislative action.

BobB The "feature" that if the system stays offline for more than 90 days, the battery will shut off is a showstopping red flag for me.

I came across it when looking for something else, so I would encourage doing your own research, questioning Sigenergy about this feature, etc, but on the face of it would be a red flag to me as well.

Its probably pretty unlikely that Sigenergy would fail, the servers go offline and nobody rescues the company, but I just wouldn't want that kind of lock on my kit. What if Sigenergy decide that remote control of your inverter is a paid-for subscription service (BMW and a garage door manufacturer did that)? What if 10 years down the line and several product lines later Sigenergy retire the old cloud service, or what if in 10 years time there's a bug in the cloud service that won't accept your connection and by then no-one knows about your kit any more?

Full unrestricted local control. Especially for that kind of money

So who does that leave?

mrand31 Victron

geoffreycoan The need for the batteries to phone home every 3 months or else they deactivate themselves

Welp....that'd be a hard "No" from me then.

Watch the YouTube videos of Matt Armstrong repairing some supercars. In a crash the batteries "know" and auto disconnect power breakers to make things safe. Matt rebuilds the cars, but because he is not an authorized repair company, he cannot reset the battery firmware lockout and the manufacturers will not help him. This has raised the question of what you are allowed to do with something you have bought and paid for

SteveCook Well as I've pointed out before - for LFP batteries the cell manufacturers (EVE in our case) stipulate that the customer (GE in our case) MUST stop the cells operating if either the internal cell resistance has increased by 150% or the cells are at 70% of original capacity.

Pretty sure most people aren't aware their batteries aren't going to be usable AT ALL below 70% of original capacity - assuming of course GE have actually implemented those requirements.

For anyone wondering why, its because (apparantly) LFP cells are prone to "fail catastrophically" once they're below that point. By that they mean rupture/explode. Before anyone panics - that won't cause a fire, just a lot of smoke and hassle for the fire brigade (ask @geoffreycoan how they fail 😉 ).

There's all sorts of "gotchas" with this sort of kit.....

Vestas I make no comment 😉

Guided tours and demonstrations are available ....

geoffreycoan They (EVE Power) do actually test for exactly the failure mode you caused (Extrusion test) and the results were "No fire, no explosion" 🙂

Vestas hopefully those protections are in the firmware. Because of Giv did fail, how would we know if their portal was gone...

TX200 …. Schrödinger's Website?

Vestas Which of the battery registers exposed by brikbat’s givtcp do we need to monitor to identify/detect that sort of degradation ?

Maxwell There won't be any AFAIK.

It'll be the BMS which will/should be responsible for shutting the battery down permanently, otherwise what's to stop some scroat selling the battery on?

Whilst it’s great that we have folks who are willing and able to get down and dirty with coding etc to provide those local control/monitoring solutions it does mean that users are at increased risk of falling foul of supply chain attacks like this. And I’m not having a pop at those folks.
All the more reason to make sure your GE kit is on it’s own network like you guest WiFi or other dedicated lan. (Limit the impact should your local monitoring solution get compromised.)
Not sure whether the scale of this particular campaign is yet fully known.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2026/03/25/teampcp-supply-chain-attacks/

I don’t have any financial interest in this company. But could be useful in the dev space as a layer or protection. The much used and abused “pip install”

https://github.com/DataDog/supply-chain-firewall

It's a shame I can't show Phoenix this https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/28/north-sea-oil-gas-licences-conservatives

Research by the energy consultancy Voar and the campaign group Uplift found that between 2010 and 2024, the government handed out hundreds of new North Sea oil and gas licences in seven licensing rounds.

This led to 20 new and relicensed fields that have the potential, over their lifetime, to produce enough gas to supply the UK for only six months. To date they have produced the equivalent of 36 days of extra gas.

Vestas Hi, This all reads like genuinely helpful, thank you. I am not the most tech savvy human but with focus i can get there.....

I have an iPhone 8 gathering dust in a drawer.......I have an iMac sat on my desk........the iPhone i can presumably set in a way that doesnt actual reach the real internet?? the iMac not so much of course.

In your clearly more learned mind what would you do with these options (I guessing the phone is most ideal?) in order to control the battery and basically tell GE to jeff off?

Sorry to be so direct but any help is appreciated

Tim

TimBishop I don't use Apple products so I'm not the right person to ask. AFAIK you'd need to use the BBC Basic Inverter app which is on the Apple store if using a phone.

You can install HomeAssistant on macOS so I presume GivTCP works. In theory you'd just follow the instructions here -

https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/macos/

and here -

https://youtu.be/d06Mqeplvns?si=IxbRqeZZi_dESbEm

Been ghosted by them for the last 1-2 years, as far as I am concerned they don't exist.

Vestas If you've got Apple Silicon you are better off using UTM than virtual box.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MChIobtzmY on Speak to the geek

Better if you have 16GB RAM

I've used it for over a year and had no issues

As the the title of the thread the subscription model may be a last grasp of a straw. An alternative forum to exchange views and most importantly preserve knowledge is https://renewableheatinghub.co.uk/forums/energy-storage/ which clearly was originally and is primarily ASHP related but has other technologies under discussion too.
It’s civilised and well monitored so doesn’t suffer from trolls/other media problems

I think the big thing here is that GE need to urgently release full local control of the systems to people to allow management after they go under. Such as adding or removing inverters and batteries from the system. If an inverter goes pop, someone's installer has got to be able to source a replacement even used and add it in to the system.

Al E.Gator I'd welcome that and would be scouring ebay for another battery. However, I fail to detect the benefit to Giv, so I don't see it happening.

Batteries just work natively. The whole commissioning thing is purely to register it to the portal for warranty. No portal/warranty no problem. Just plug it in, set the dip switches and you’re done.

hoggy Really? Sounds like good news if I can add a 2nd hand battery myself. Does adding an extra battery invalidate the warranty on the whole installation if the new battery wasn't commissioned? Obviously not a consideration if Givenergy are no more but they're still here for now.

hoggy Yes I was going to say the same thing as Lincs_Will below, how can we get the inverters to talk to the batteries at the moment? You need the commissioning portal to allow the inverters to work with a particular battery setup?

I think the thing will be if you can get your hands on a good quality second hand battery if yours fails.

I did notice an installer, a limited company, offering an AIO2 on fleabay. When I asked them if commissioning was included, they said that they weren't offering commissioning.
I did wonder about going for a DIY, no warranty upgrade route...

Technically shouldn't the advice to others be to get a competent electrician to install it?

Not everyone on here is a sparky and if they do it wrong they might get a very big spark and/or an earlier appointment at the pearly gates than expected?

TX200 yes of course. I was coming from the perspective of an installer not being constrained by the portal (were it cease to be) for battery upgrades. Obviously if you are not competent you will likely have a very bad day.

Commissioning out of the box inverters is going to be an uphill struggle however.

I would also be concerned that if our inverter or even WiFi dongle went all money spent on the new battery and electrician would be wasted. The basic plan for me is to keep our existing kit running locally until it fails, and then look for alternatives from someone like Eleven.
After this experience we will want kit with local control though, which few vendors seem to offer at present.

TX200 well yes of course but they’d need the same local access if GE wasn’t there.

What is required to add an additional unwarranted battery to an existing system?

If it’s plugged in correctly will it just work as part of the system or is something else required?

With regard the GW and AIO-1 system, if you have 1 x AIO the inverter in the AIO does all the work & that inverter shows up in the GE cloud. If you have a second AIO or third then the GW takes control, so commissioning and FW updates are essential to ensure this happens correctly.

I do not know what would happen for other GE systems or the GW2 & AIO2.

Hook It needs to be commissioned on GE's own specific installer portal. As far as I know the registers aren't currently hidden away in available local control methods to be able to do this. This would mean if just one part of your system went pop (dongle, inverter, battery), the whole lot would be down and you'd end up with a pile of scrap metal. At least you might be able to find a second hand replacement inverter or dongle and get an electrician to fit it if we had access to modifying the system parameters.

https://caseboard.io/cases/3bce5889-8fa9-4961-804f-a9a407993ef3

hoggy very disappointing. So much for our warranty ☹️

Lest hope it all still up on Monday when my replacement inverter get fitted.

It was inevitable. With respect to warranty, we had to use section 75 when our installer went pop with the job half finished. It's not my area of expertise but I suspect that it covers the installers liability and nothing to do with a manufacturer's warranty?

OK, so have we reached a consensus on where on t’interweb we will reconvene?

I will be dependant upon the Rubik App when they shutdown this portal. I do not intend to give access to my install to any phoenix company / pay a monthly fee. So wherever Andrew Miller goes is OK by me.
Other significant contributors (Hoggy, GeoffCoan, Vesta, etc) please add your suggestions.
I doubt that there will be software upgrades to benefit my 3 year old kit so I will run it until it dies then review my options.
If the portal suddenly dissappears, Thank You to everyone for their constructive inputs.

Newman All I'd say is do NOT block the GE comms servers until there's an announcement about all this. It could screw up any warranty which may be handled by a phoenix company.

Its highly unlikely any company is going to take over warranties but at this stage its best not to breach your side of the warranty agreement.

Once an announcement is made then I intend fully blocking inverter comms to the internet. I'm not having some shonky company run by ex-GE twats controlling my system or receiving my data.

Vestas Would you be willing to write a quick guide on 'post-Giv survival protocol', and post it on a non-Giv platform?

Which domains/addresses to block, how to maintain local access etc?

Would be greatly appreciated by many, I'm sure...

Newman There was previous chat about going to a new discord server or convening on SolarUK reddit. Personally I think our own "GEusers" community on Reddit makes sense to me.

ectoplasmosis ditto - I think I'm going to have to take the plunge and setup HA.

ectoplasmosis Feel free to copy the first two posts on the thread and post them where you want. I've already done that with a couple of forums.

Assuming you're not going to be using the GE app then the only domain which requires blocking is comms.givenergy.cloud.

As an experiment I have just blocked our inverter from making any outgoing calls outside our network. Inbound firewall rules will prevent calls from outside the network.
GivTCP and the Rubikcube app seem to be functioning perfectly.

As part of the 'post-Giv survival protocol'' any interest in a project to reverse engineer the BMS protocol using a USB to RS485/422 converter and adding it to https://github.com/dalathegreat/Battery-Emulator/ ?

pwdst If you completely block the inverter from internet comms then you may find the dongle reboots every few hours as it can't find a timeserver (0.pool.ntp.org). Mine did even with GivTCP v3.

Basically it needs to set the dongle clock after a reboot and after a certain number of attempts it'll ping the router (gateway) for a while, sulk and reboot. Doesn't happen if it can contact a timeserver.

I'd vote for Reddit. Seems easiest option.

TX200 Did they implement the age verification/ofcom nonsense? I don't have an account and I'm not providing ID information to yanks, not with the complete fuckwits in charge of that country.

So can you sign up without it?

Vestas you can use non-sensitive stuff without age verification.

I had to do a quick video test (to show that I look old!) when I joined a few communities (NSFW ones, but nothing like that, honest - just gym/workout/diet etc related 🤣 )

TX200 That's a good possibility then. I'm fairly agnostic as long as I don't have to jump through stupid hoops and its fairly functional.

Given where we are that shouldn't be a high bar 😃

Need a poll on a new thread I think with options suggested so far?

Maybe someone else could post it....

abedegno I'm hoping that the Giv BMS protocol will eventually be reverse-engineered, allowing third-party batteries to be used with Giv inverters, and especially the other way round.

ectoplasmosis Well assuming you mean LV batteries (48V) then Rubikcube's app will allow adding those in future.

The caveat is you tell the inverter its lead-acid and specify voltage limits for "full" & "empty". For a typical LFP battery then you put in safe limits like 49V low-end and 55V upper-end and that'd work fine as long as you're not expecting the SoC to be accurate.

It isn't that great now so no great loss - most of my automations run on battery/cell voltages rather than SoC anyway.

Vestas I'm mainly concerned about the other way round: Giv inverters themselves failing over time, leaving behind a much more costly array of perfectly fine Giv batteries... would be great to have a path to adopting those batteries with a different brand of inverter.

ectoplasmosis Well looking at my battery I'd say the polar opposite is more likely 😃

Reiterating what @Judith mentioned earlier, I can agree you're all welcome to come on over to the Renewable Heating Hub if Reddit doesn't suit or doesn't work out. Although the forum has its roots firmly in heat pump installations, the content these days has a rather wider focus and many of us have and discuss complete solutions - heat pump, solar PV and battery(ies), EVs and charging and, perhaps most important in this context, integration choices for controlling via local means (Home Assistant, third party apps, bespoke Python scripts etc.)
This is not a push, btw, to try to get you all to sign up to RHH. The forum is being mentioned simply as an easy alternative to the larger scale alternatives which may, as @Vestas mentioned, be hosted in the US and require some ID and verification to sign up to. If the larger scale options are more appealing, no problem.

Hi all,

I have the GE app, HA and Predbat. And was thinking about what we can and possibly can not do in the future. I would suggest going into the GE cloud, screen shot a few things, then compare what you can or can not do if the cloud disappeared in the near future.

I have a GW and AIO system & GE EVC so this maybe different to say a Gen3 Inverter and batteries.

This is what I have screen shot and am not comparing it to what I can see in HA & Predbat.

Daveb01 I have a GW and AIO system & GE EVC so this maybe different to say a Gen3 Inverter and batteries.

Now on Speak to the Geek, he said that the GE EVC will not work as it is all cloud controlled - I don't have one so no idea whether this is correct or not, but maybe there is something you can configure now just in case the cloud goes

CW I think there was hope it'd work with givTCP locally, but not sure they had much success.

So, as per the video, may be worth putting it in manual mode (if I recall correctly) and let the car be in charge of the schedule.

Or just carry on as before and if it all goes down, replace it with a different brand.

as inverter usually wears out before the batteries, is there any option available that would work with GivEnergy batteries?

deepanshus Not that I am aware of.

There will likely be a lot of 2nd kit so might not really be an issue for the real life of the batteries...

ectoplasmosis there is also an option of https://renewableheatinghub.co.uk/forums/energy-storage/anyone-concerned-about-givenergy/paged/5/#post-61473
Its civilised, well moderated but possibly not a specialised compared with other options

Simple decision guide
• Want simple + familiar → Signal
• Want big group + easy → Telegram
• Want organised community (best overall) → Discord
• Want privacy / self-hosting → Element or Stoat

I'm not sure signal or telegram would work for a community, wouldn't it be more like a bunch of chat messages rather than structured topics?

Discord is a maybe.

So far the offer from that renewable heat forum might be the best option, or Reddit.

see Rubikcube - he has set up website and forum:
https://givenergymonitor.co.uk/index.html
and forum: https://forum.givenergymonitor.co.uk/
several joined already from this community

If you ignore the technical deficiencies re GE kit this is a decent 5 minute video -

https://youtu.be/CRVYs803TCQ?si=Gmh_ryD_IEzactfS

Vestas very helpful and clear video

Judith Bear in mind that although the link you provided is to a single thread, that thread is within a section dedicated to energy storage, and we have other sections for, for instance, solar PV. As a result, future discussions about GivEnergy kit can spread out as much as needed whilst also sitting within areas that can include non GE kit too. Useful for any of you wanting to kick around futureproofing ideas for coexistence of multiple brands of equipment. Just a thought.

TX200 I haven't got a GE EVC either so I'm purely going on documentation. However, the most recent GivTCP release (3.5) does have an important detail in the Readme that says any GivEVC with firmware v1.12 or earlier has a bug that only makes modbus available on WiFi. Since it seems from my cursory reading that many of you use the EVC on Ethernet, it would make sense to request for the firmware to be updated to v1.13 and then try following the GivTCP instructions for enabling EVC control.
It certainly might still not work, but I can't see much to lose by at least giving it a go.

TX200 Discord is a maybe.

No. Not if I have to rot in the 9th circle of hell will I ever use Discord again 😃

Judith Signed up as it will probably be helpful if I get a heatpump - which isn't likely for now.

Vestas https://community.openenergymonitor.org/ is also useful for heatpumps

So now the staff have been sacked, I am guessing the server maybe turned off soon to save ££££. This community and the beta community may go offline very soon.

Where are you guys going to post if say it gets turned off at midnight tonight?

Daveb01 So now the staff have been sacked

where is this documented?

Daveb01 So now the staff have been sacked

Are there any references to support that this has happened? Or is this based on the LinkedIn looking for new opportunities status of the support team members?

Presumably this post, which is thin on detail, so could be true, could be half true, could be competitor pot stirring
https://www.reddit.com/r/SolarUK/comments/1sgsy0q/givenergy_ltd_have_just_made_their_entire_staff/

I know there has been a lot posted on this. But do we have a confirmed understanding of whether if the cloud is lost will inverters eventually stop working without a cloud heartbeat ? And will 3rd party local monitoring suffice as the heartbeat ? Also, is there anything customers can do to protect themselves against a company that say takes ownership and then forces say a firmware update that then forces you into a paid for monthly subscription (eg like logging out of the portal ahead of it dying ? I know there has been some discussion about the t&cs saying the device needs to be internet connected but if so then there just be some time period for loss before any t&cs would be violated. Although would t&cs still be enforceable if GE goes out of business ? )

M_J also i was wondering if there is any merit in buying an inverter as a backup hardware in stock, but then i realised with GivEnergy support gone, it wont be even possible to commission the new unit..so in a worse case scenario of an unlikely (wishful thinking) even of inverter going kaput, the only option is to get a new system, Inv + Battery !!

Maxwell when i was rewiring my LAN cables, the router was down for almost half a day and inverter was charging the battery and home successfully, there was no update to the cloud. effectively that data was lost but i don’t recall having any effect on the functioning of the system. i would assume the same if GE servers stop responding

The givEnergy software company is not in administration, I assume the portal is part of that software company, and thus safe (for now?) (albeit needing to charge a monthly fee to be sustainable).

As for who owns these forums, not sure. Might make sense if it was the software company that owns them, but who knows.

Maxwell will inverters eventually stop working

I bought a second hand inverter (for testing) on ebay over a year ago. Changed the serial number just in case it accidentally connected to the internet. Never been connected to the cloud, only my app, and it still works fine.

Rubikcube Thanks. Useful info. Hope the same thing applies across all their models. Did you go through some local equivalent of commissioning without the portal ?

I suppose it's also time to own up that I've had non givenegy batteries running on one of mine natively for over 3 years...

hoggy Ah, so now we know why their sales have slowed 😉

hoggy suppose it's also time to own up that

Any other useful and interesting confessions? 👍

hoggy time to spill the beans. There is no staff left now for you to get into trouble.

EVM just posted a video

hoggy Using 'lead acid' mode, or something a bit more funky?

Maxwell local equivalent of commissioning without the portal

To commission it I put a 13A plug on it !

No real tricks or man in the middle magic box - couple of register tweaks but it's not lead acid mode (although been through all that playing hence the messy DC cabling when that was taken)

Can't let all my findings out in one go though, where's the fun in that?

Oh and I know where the treasure is buried on Oak Island...

phewweeeee {does a gold dance} 🙂

Rubikcube So does this mean that a brand new, out-of-the-box inverter having never been used, will work without commissioning via the Giv installer portal?

I had assumed that it would need configuring (G98/99, maximum output power, CT type and orientation etc) before being able to output to cover load/export…

I would be interested to see how the MCS scheme feel about all this and how their insurance works if GivEnergy disappear

ectoplasmosis It wasn't brand new, he got it from ebay & the answer to your question is no.

SteveCook how the MCS scheme feel about all this a

The excuses and their exclusions will be an interesting read.

Robgy Indeed, they're a pretty shonky organisation.

I actually think there needs to be a legal mandate going forward that all battery storage systems sold must be fully controllable locally, with all features still accessible to the user without access to the cloud in case something like this happens.

ectoplasmosis Depends what you mean by work. All I wanted was a spare to practice changing the serial number, setting the time, and a few other things without risk of damaging my main system. If you want to connect panels, battery, and meter, then it will need configuring.

You might also need to inform your DNO.

hoggy The mythical chimera lives!

On tenterhooks for the full info drop, when/if you decide to reveal...

Rubikcube My angle, and main concern, is longevity of inverters compared to batteries. I'd expect my inverter to fail before either of my (much more expensive) 2x 9.5kWh batteries do. If/when that happens, it would be great to have a community-supported way of commissioning/configuring a 'new-old-stock' replacement inverter, to keep the whole system going without ripping everything out and starting again.

ectoplasmosis Right now, the simplest way to make a replacement inverter work with the portal is to change the serial number to match the old one. This is what GE engineers tend to do. Currently installers don't have the ability to change serial numbers.

If the portal is to remain, installers will need the ability to change serial numbers. If the portal ceases to operate, there will be no reason to change serial numbers. In fact my app works better if the serial number is not changed.

Everything will hopefully be clearer in a few months time.

Rubikcube How does the inverter authenticate with the cloud ?

Maxwell It doesn't.

hoggy I really hope GE didn't consult with staff over redundancies because the law changed on 6 April.

From their administrator's website (LCF Law) -

Where an employer fails to collectively consult when making 20 or more redundancies within a 90-day period, employees can currently claim a protective award of up to 90 days' pay. From April, that maximum doubles to 180 days' pay, a significant increase in the potential cost of getting redundancy processes wrong.

Stick it to them guys.

deepanshus Our Sunnyboy inverter on our original PV system is still going strong after 16years. There’s nothing fundamentally in power electronics to wear out quickly unlike batteries.
Power electronics has infant mortality and eventually there are wear out mechanisms (nerd alert) but IF the design was within conservative limits on voltage, power and heat sinking, then stuff can last for ages. The limits are usually switches, sockets and electrolytic capacitors.

Vestas So everyone’s data wizzes into the same cloud front door without authentication and GE sort it out based on inverter serial number in the traffic Is that correct ?

Maxwell Yes.

Rubikcube Thank you for this detail!

I'm less concerned about making a replacement inverter work with the Giv portal, much more so with being able to 'commission' a 'new-old-stock' in order to configure it to the same settings as the one its replacing (G98/99, max export power, PV startup voltage, CT orientation etc).

I'm hopeful that these settings will eventually be exposed, in one way or another, to the community...

ectoplasmosis Already done!

Just use the Recover tab in my app, grid meter, em115, em418, and battery settings are all recoverable.

Rubikcube Lovely! How about PV startup voltage, and the rest?

ectoplasmosis

val regNames = arrayOf(
Pair(5, "Nominal Power"),
Pair(7, "Grid Meter"),
Pair(20, "Enable Charge limit"),
Pair(26, "Export Limit"),
Pair(27, "Eco Mode"),
Pair(29, "Calibration Stage"),
Pair(44, "Discharge 2 Start"),
Pair(45, "Discharge 2 End"),
Pair(47, "Meter Type"),
Pair(48, "EM115 direction"),
Pair(49, "EM418 direction"),
Pair(50, "Active Power Rate"),
Pair(51, "Reactive Power Rate"),
Pair(52, "Power Factor"),
Pair(53, "Auto Restart"),
Pair(54, "Battery Type"),
Pair(55, "Battery Capacity"),
Pair(56, "Discharge 1 Start"),
Pair(57, "Discharge 1 End"),
Pair(58, "Battery Auto Detect"),
Pair(59, "Timed Discharge"),
Pair(60, "PV Startup Voltage"),

    Pair(94, "Charge 1 Start"),
    Pair(95, "Charge 1 End"),
    Pair(96, "Timed Charge"),

    Pair(111, "Charge Rate"),
    Pair(112, "Discharge Rate"),
    Pair(116, "Charge 1 Limit"),

    Pair(242, "Charge 1 Limit"),
    Pair(243, "Charge 2 Start"),
    Pair(244, "Charge 2 End"),
    Pair(245, "Charge 2 Limit"),
    Pair(246, "Charge 3 Start"),
    Pair(247, "Charge 3 End"),
    Pair(248, "Charge 3 Limit"),
    Pair(249, "Charge 4 Start"),
    Pair(250, "Charge 4 End"),
    Pair(251, "Charge 4 Limit"),
    Pair(252, "Charge 5 Start"),
    Pair(253, "Charge 5 End"),
    Pair(254, "Charge 5 Limit"),
    Pair(255, "Charge 6 Start"),
    Pair(256, "Charge 6 End"),
    Pair(257, "Charge 6 Limit"),
    Pair(258, "Charge 7 Start"),
    Pair(259, "Charge 7 End"),
    Pair(260, "Charge 7 Limit"),
    Pair(261, "Charge 8 Start"),
    Pair(262, "Charge 8 End"),
    Pair(263, "Charge 8 Limit"),
    Pair(264, "Charge 9 Start"),
    Pair(265, "Charge 9 End"),
    Pair(266, "Charge 9 Limit"),
    Pair(267, "Charge 10 Start"),
    Pair(268, "Charge 10 End"),
    Pair(269, "Charge 10 Limit"),
    Pair(272, "Discharge 1 Limit"),
    Pair(273, "Discharge 2 Start"),
    Pair(274, "Discharge 2 End"),
    Pair(275, "Discharge 2 Limit"),
    Pair(276, "Discharge 3 Start"),
    Pair(277, "Discharge 3 End"),
    Pair(278, "Discharge 3 Limit"),
    Pair(279, "Discharge 4 Start"),
    Pair(280, "Discharge 4 End"),
    Pair(281, "Discharge 4 Limit"),
    Pair(282, "Discharge 5 Start"),
    Pair(283, "Discharge 5 End"),
    Pair(284, "Discharge 5 Limit"),
    Pair(285, "Discharge 6 Start"),
    Pair(286, "Discharge 6 End"),
    Pair(287, "Discharge 6 Limit"),
    Pair(288, "Discharge 7 Start"),
    Pair(289, "Discharge 7 End"),
    Pair(290, "Discharge 7 Limit"),
    Pair(291, "Discharge 8 Start"),
    Pair(292, "Discharge 8 End"),
    Pair(293, "Discharge 8 Limit"),
    Pair(294, "Discharge 9 Start"),
    Pair(295, "Discharge 9 End"),
    Pair(296, "Discharge 9 Limit"),
    Pair(297, "Discharge 10 Start"),
    Pair(298, "Discharge 10 End"),
    Pair(299, "Discharge 10 Limit"),

    Pair(313, "Charge Rate %"),
    Pair(314, "Discharge Rate %"),
    Pair(318, "Pause Mode"),
    Pair(319, "Pause Start"),
    Pair(320, "Pause End"),
)

Rubikcube Nice! My meter is a 'GEM120CT'; would this fall under one of the two models listed in the values you posted? I'd assume it's a like-for-like with the EM115?

Rubikcube

I'm not spotting the data:- Recover tab in the controls section only seems to be showing charge time/settings changes with option to restore them?

Vestas Stick it to them guys.

I think it comes out of our taxes if awarded if the company has no funds?

But they should get there fare dues and that's what we pay our taxes for so we help those being screwed over...

ectoplasmosis the GEM120CT is just the Eastron SDM120CT flashed with firmware to make the registers map to the same as an EM115 - so yes

Has anyone tried to commission a system since the 8th? Got an additional battery landing, assuming I might be up a creek...

RR125 Batteries are plug and play, no commissioning required (I only have experience of LV packs, HV may behave the same).

ectoplasmosis I didn't think they where. As far as I know I couldn't go out and buy a 9.5 and gen 2 to gen 2 cable, set the dip switches and then it all just works.

Al E.Gator that's kind of what i thought, I'm gen3 9.5 to gen 3 9.5 and from my manual it's

"Commission the battery on the online portal and ensure the battery is operating normally."

I guess I'll let you know.

Al E.Gator

go out and buy a 9.5 and gen 2 to gen 2 cable, set the dip switches and then it all just works.

This is exactly how it works; fully functional, plug and play out of the box... providing the installation guidelines are followed (cabling, DIP switches, earth bonding, SoC/voltage balancing etc). The 'commissioning' process was only ever relevant in order to register the battery to your account for warranty purposes.

Source: I've self-installed 2x separately sourced 9.5kWh Gen2 batteries.

ectoplasmosis HV battery stacks were supposed to be user upgradable.

ectoplasmosis And when you self installed them it all came up with the correct capacity register on the portal etc so SOC's are all accurate?

Also, I seem to remember that the gen 1, 3.6kwh inverters and the 5kwh were the same hardware, or did I imagine that?

that is correct across most of the range to be fair (AIO's all the way through to Polar)

Well, it's here.
A message from my installer today, 10th April 2026:
"GivEnergy have appointed administrators and have made redundancies across the business. At this stage, we do not yet have full clarity on what this will mean for customers going forward.

While GivEnergy products have performed reliably for both us and many of our customers, this situation may impact areas such as future support, warranties, and long-term service.

We strongly advise that you change the EV settings to Plug and Play. We understand that this setting will not be adjustable if the monitoring platform is not accessible. You may wish to remove automation from your batteries, however, we are not aware of how the monitoring platform changes will affect this setting."

That is true, but the 3.6kW inverter is software limited. On the plus side that presumably means that there is a lot of headroom should they degrade.

For those wanting to explore the world of Home Assistant and GivTCP, STTG has just published a new tutorial

https://youtu.be/rHSI4oTZyTI?si=p7n-KsiwNEQwJ0-A

hoggy is that a hoggy dashboard special to change the “Inverter_max_inv_rate” register ? And in the same vein does that mean the max battery discharge rate can also be changed ?

hoggy
No 6Kw option though :-)
The inverter claims to have a 6000W limit

The 5Kw gen 3 hybrid claim a 6kW limit, and happily run at 5.2kW to allow _200W inverter losses to pass 5kW to the home/export.

I'd always wanted to see it I could up mine to 5.35kW or 5.4kW as my home load was alway such that I only even exported 4.7kW max

Al E.Gator Yep, showed correctly first time, no interventions required. I did try to match the SoC when fitting the second battery; they were reading ₁₀% out when fitted, but seemed to self-balance after a couple of normal use cycles.

hoggy ooh do tell!

Since we soon won’t have warranty I want to see what is achievable. Can any batteries be added, or just specific ones?

Hook He is a tease isn't he 😃

Hook I think they have 6 days left to find a financial lifeline before the administration kicks in.

With staff all made redundant it doesn't seem likely it will be sold as a going concern.

pwdst Lets be honest about it - installers weren't installing GE kit because it was a PITA to commission and if you ever had a problem it took forever to sort out. Administration doesn't improve that reputation. The brand in the UK is done, as is any phoenix company arising from it. Nobody is going to trust them again.

I have said it before and I will say it again, the only way the company is surviving is if someone like Octopus buys them to make their own branded "Flux" batteries and inverters for their solar installs, as with their "Cosy" Heat Pumps.
Given what they would mostly be buying is the staff, expertise, IP and facilities that is diminished with the staff gone.

So far after 3 years my GivEnergy kit has worked well and is still working (fingers crossed), a couple of small bumps along the way, but there is no way I would buy anything again

If Octopus bought the shell, produced their own brand batteries and inverters six to twelve months hence they do not need installers or prospective customers to believe in the GivEnergy brand. It doesn't even require installers to believe in the Octopus one - installs would be by their own teams or subcontractors.
The classy thing would be to honour legacy warranties, not least because many of the customers will be their own anyway, but I don't believe they would be required to.

@hoggy Any idea which commands/registers are being controlled when Giv support staff remotely 'reactivate' batteries which are in a fault state?

There are multiple anecdotes, including on this forum, of this happening, but I haven't read any definitive conclusions as to which exact mechanisms are being used to resuscitate these batteries/systems remotely... Would be handy to know, or for this to be built-in to any future community supported tools.

ectoplasmosis yes I know the one. I know this come across as teasing and that's not my intention - I have 2 young kids (neither seem to sleep) and so I only mange to grab about 20mins a day pushing the project along. Nearly there now

On another tip: there are a few people on other platforms who claim to know that the Giv BMS control protocol has been reverse-engineered, and others who claim to have fitted alternative BMS boards to Giv battery packs (presumably running Giv firmware on these boards).

Anyone on here (again, looking mainly at @hoggy ) played around with this?

Edit: looks like the BMS boards may be generic: https://diysolarforum.com/threads/please-help-me-identify-this-bms.102374/

hoggy Nice! I'm in the same boat (with regards to kids), so zero pressure or expectation! I'm hoping that once all the dust settles, we will end up with a full suite of community-developed control and maintenance solutions for existing Giv systems, along with options for replacing components (BMS boards etc), and re-commissioning replacement/new-old-stock inverters.

ectoplasmosis if you can point me to claims I can compare notes. I do have a couple of spare BMS boards if people are desperate (I need to repair one though)

hoggy Zero technical detail in those 'claims', so not worth digging them out tbh... could well be BS anyway.

Would be great to have the option to just fit a generic BMS board in place of a failed one, flash it with Giv firmware and have a working (or indeed third-party) battery pack.

TX200 sorry to jump all the way back to this post, but what are the “manual mode” settings?

I’m a little confused by all the options available on the portal. I’ve only got a WiFi connect EVC, it’s not linked directly to me inverter. Also, not sure I’ve ever noticed it before but is this “local control” option new?

Pol sorry I don't have a giv EVC, so not sure of the exact details

Try speak to the geek's video on YouTube.

Can't recall if it was in the video re the adminstration or the video about home assistant setup. Maybe watch both!

hoggy There's also a seemingly defunct UK company called 'Prime Hybrid Energy' who came out with a product range of inverters and batteries in 2017, which all look suspiciously like the Gen1 Giv kit: https://www.facebook.com/primehybridenergy/?locale=en_GB (apologies for the FB link, their website doesn't exist anymore).

Looks to be made by the same OEM as Giv. Same hardware as the Giv Gen1 hybrid inverter, identical BMS board (as mentioned here: https://diysolarforum.com/threads/please-help-me-identify-this-bms.102374/ ), same serial numbering schema as Giv... company activity looks to have petered off around 2019, when Giv entered the picture in a big way.

Edit: some Giv staff have 'Prime Hybrid Energy' listed as their previous employer on Linkedin.

ectoplasmosis They also had premises up the road from GE Ltd back in 2019.

Vestas Some better pics of the kit here, with others having drawn similar conclusions about the OEM/links to Giv: https://www.reddit.com/r/SolarUK/comments/1rx64v6/i_need_some_advice/

ectoplasmosis I have a vague recollection of @hoggy saying the Gen1 "GE" inverter was actually a copy of something else.

Vestas Likely just an off the shelf design OEM'ed by a Chinese partner, as opposed to a 'copy'.

ectoplasmosis Oh undoubtably. I mean that's all GE did with their consumer kit. Makes me laugh when I see them described as a "battery manufacturer" - battery reseller would be more accurate.

Yeah so I explain all this in my teardown that I got threatened with when I did it. There's at least half a dozen clones -
Prime Hybrid
Lantrun
ESA (Australia)
MUST PH1000 series
Iypower 5kh1
Sumry Aegis

I'll dig all that stuff back up.
Basically givenergy bought the OEM in China (although for a while you had Prime in the UK too using smart gear)

TX200 no worries! Thanks, I see he had the settings on the mobile app on the administration video, I missed it before.

If anyone is familiar with the “Enable Local Mode” option and how it works an explainer would be great!

hoggy Nice, thanks!

Can't wait for the full datadump when the time is right...

Pol I have an GE EVC and use Home Assistant with GIVTCP to provide EV charging info on a HA dashboard. My understanding is that the Enable Local Control should also allow GIVTCP (and similar 3rd party apps -though I don't know of any others) to control / change settings on the EVC and I have it enabled but I have never been able to get it to work and lost interest. Happy to share more details to anyone interested but as per the general advice I have set my EVC to standalone Plug and Go mode for the time being

daveyge thanks for the explanation - sounds like there’s no harm in just turning it on now as an option anyway? And maybe GivTCP will be updated down the line to support proper local control?

Pol Yes I agree. Might just be me of course 🙂

Pol hmm, whenever I try to enable it and restart the charger is just times out. That’s annoying.

mrand31
me too. confused as to how to save those settings?

ectoplasmosis as a start (and because it's already out there if you search for it and therefore not my fault) perhaps a German home automation has some old but useful documents :
https://www.loxforum.com/forum/german/software-konfiguration-programm-und-visualisierung/262253-modbus-tcp-hilfe

hoggy Basically givenergy bought the OEM in China (although for a while you had Prime in the UK too using smart gear)

So, does this mean that the OEM (Shenzen GE?, JMHING group?) are now tits up, or might they be resurrected in a new incarnation?

Pol

This was in the new email and clarifies what will happen and what you can do with the EVC.

What about the EV charger (EVC)? And Smart Plugs?

Complete, remote EV charger functionality will be included in the free tier from the outset, because local control is not fully supported.

We’re looking at ways to improve local EVC control, which will benefit tinkerers as well as app users. We reserve the right to move more of the EVC control over to direct local mode, avoiding the cloud costs, in the future.

GivEnergy’s Smart Plugs have been discontinued and will no longer be able to be set up within the app after next month. They were produced in partnership with Tuya, and can be set up controlled with the Tuya app available for free on the App Store.

I have heard that the GivEnergy EV Charger (EVC) won't function if it can't connect to the GivEnergy servers. How can I ensure it continues to work?

There is currently no expectation of the EVC servers going offline. However, if you want to ensure that your GivEnergy EVC will still work even if it's disconnected you can do either of the following:

1. Register your id tag(s) to your EVC using the GivEnergy App or Portal and tap it on the EVC to start or stop a charge. This will continue to work even if the EVC is offline because the EVC itself keeps track of registered tags.

2. Create and enable a schedule on the EVC using the GivEnergy app or Portal that charges the car at the times you require. This will cause the EVC to start a charge at the scheduled time as long as a car is plugged in, regardless of whether the EVC is online, because schedules are stored on and executed by the EVC itself. If your vehicle supports setting a schedule, it is recommended to set a 24-hour schedule on the EVC and a more specific schedule on the vehicle.

Please note, Plug and Go (also known as Plug and Charge) will not function if the EVC is not online as this functionality is provided by the GivEnergy servers. You don't need to turn it off, but please be aware that plug and go will not activate if the EVC is offline. If you would like a charge to start as soon as your EV is plugged in, you can create a 24-hour schedule as described above.

Daveb01 Thanks for sharing this, I see I have the same email now too. Will set the charger up as instructed for the meantime, and hopefully they do expand local control down the line somehow.

mrand31 They're fine. Its just the UK business that's in the toilet.

Although Polar in China has been very quiet on socials since Christmas

Note that J.O. is the only listed person at Companies House for the JMHING companies.

ectoplasmosis you have discord? if you do join https://discord.gg/aAScP7Es and I will DM you if ok... a few people from here have joined recently, be good to have this discussion in a thread before this goes offline...

joshgreenuk Just joined and replied to the BMS thread…

I like Discord as I have other groups on there. Go on reddit occasionally but seems full of idiots...

I like the real time aspect, with threads if needed

If you have a GE EVC take a look at this, he’s done a brilliant job

https://community-beta.givenergy.cloud/t/evc-owners-if-you-want-to-remove-givenergys-cloud-from-your-charger-then-read-on/5358

Apparently the official GE discussion boards are safe and will be freely available regardless of tier.

KevinH looks like most of us have moved to Discord, 93 members now, and not much posted on here recently.

Have you got the link invite?